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Trump and Kushner’s ‘Deal of the Century’ for Mideast is under wraps, but looking clearer

Nothing in Donald Trump’s foreign policy goals has been so ambitious — or so absurd — as his promise to pull off a “deal of the century” between Israelis and Palestinians.

On the surface, nothing about it has made sense.

He assigned the project two years ago to his inexperienced son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose only Middle East connection was as a funder of illegal Israeli settlements and a longtime family friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And nothing about it has been balanced.

As Kushner did his work, virtually ignoring the Palestinians, Trump ensured that the U.S. government enthusiastically embraced Netanyahu’s hardline approach, encouraged the expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and abandoned any pretense of being an honest broker between the two sides.

In addition, the U.S. government broke with decades of American policy by provocatively moving its embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to Palestinians and shutting down their diplomatic mission in Washington.

Finally, as we can see now, nothing about it really encouraged a deal.

Details of Kushner’s so-called “peace plan” have been kept confidential to avoid a backlash in the Arab world and its release has been delayed again for another several months, this time until after Israel’s surprise new elections in September.

But in the meantime, the Trump administration has given Netanyahu signals it will not object if he goes ahead with his election promise to annex illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to prevent establishment of a Palestinian state.

So, given that, what has been the point of it all?

In a part of the world that can explode into violence on a moment’s notice, the answer to that question is fraught with danger.

Instead of being the “deal of the century,” this process shows every sign of being a historic “gamble” to ram through a one-sided solution to an age-old conflict even though it risks international condemnation.

Shaped largely by Netanyahu, the Trump agenda seems clear. It is intended to kill any possibility of a “two-state solution” between Israelis and Palestinians, to provide Netanyahu with the cover to achieve unilaterally what he could never obtain through fair negotiations, and — most importantly — to bury once and for all the notion of Palestinian self-determination and the promise of an independent Palestinian state.

Leaks about the Kushner plan suggest he will propose significant cash investments in Palestinian territories in exchange for them giving up any desire for an independent state. This notion has already been dismissed by Palestinians as a “bribe.”

The Palestinian leadership has refused to meet him during his visits, and Kushner last weekend in a rare television interview gave a glimpse as to why.

Although he said that Palestinians deserve “self-determination,” he expressed doubt about their capability of governing themselves: “That’s a very good question. That’s the one that we’ll have to see. The hope is that they, over time, will become capable of governing.”

His remarks were widely condemned as patronizing, if not outright racist.

At the end of all of this, if the hidden goal of this “deal of the century” is to bury the Palestinians, how will the world respond?

That is not easy to predict. Western governments have often been cowed and conflicted in how they have responded to charges of Israeli aggression — except for the Europeans. They have been consistently supportive of a fair settlement between the sides.

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On Tuesday, leaders of the European Union met Kushner and warned him that any “viable political solution” needs to take into account “the legitimate aspirations of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

The Europeans indicated they will be very vigilant about how this drama evolves in the months ahead.

And so should we all.

Tony Burman, formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyBurman

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